1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to what are commonly known as “advertisement books” or more commonly referred to as “ad-books” or printings or other publications as frequently used by charities and not-for-profit organizations for fundraising, and more particularly, to the forms and computerized/automated preparation, production, publishing and management of ad-books and related print or publishing frequently used by charities and not-for-profit organizations for fund raising.
2. Related Art
Advertisement books (hereinafter “ad-books”) and related print or publications are fundraising vehicles whereby members and supporters of an organization pay the organization to place an advertisement (hereinafter an “ad”) or message in an organization's publication for the dual purpose of advertising and contributing to the group. Organizations that may use ad-books include charities, schools, teams, associations, clubs, professional organizations, lodges, unions, boards, fraternities, sisterhoods, causes, hospitals, homes, condo-boards, synagogues, events, community groups, and political parties or candidates. Typically, an organization will solicit members and supporters to buy an “ad” or place a message in their “ad-book” or related print or publication and either sell or give away the ad-books or related print or publication as a fundraising tool. As a fundraising tool, “ad-books” (and related print or publications) are similar to group fundraisers such as award dinners, car washes, bake-sales, raffles, auctions, golf-outings, or similar events. Each such event offers members and supporters an excuse or opportunity to contribute and help the organization raise money as well as to participate in or be associated with an organization. An “ad-book” or related print or publication also offers the member or supporter the opportunity to be recognized by the organization or participate with a member, family or friend by being an incidental supporter in an “ad-book” or related print or publication, as opposed to being a “card-carrying” or dues paying member. Ad-books are often synonymous with or produced along with or in the form of dinner-programs, group directories, group calendars, raffles, auction-books, yearbooks, newsletters, or along with other simple content or events. In this way such print or other publication offers sponsorship opportunities for ads, listings, messages or other support and at a variety of rates and fees. It should be noted that the rate or fee charged in the nature of this not-for-profit sector is more attuned to the charitable giving, giving history, recognition of the charitable nature of the giver or of the members or supporters or the needs of the organization as opposed to the more commercial marketplace which places value on circulation and the more direct potential commercial results of the advertisement or the product or service.
Although “ad-book” ads or messages are viewed by advertisers as a deductible business expense, the “ad-book” advertisers are primarily members or supporters and their primary economic motivation most often is to make a contribution to the organization or to be recognized as philanthropic or to receive a generally positive social recognition as opposed to receiving quality or value for a purchase either of the “ad” or for any particular product or service. In fact, the pricing of an “ad” or message in an “ad-book” is rarely related to the typical economic considerations of a typical advertiser whereby the value of their advertisement would be based on the circulation of a given publication to the general public or a target market. The “ad-book” in this case is often not circulated beyond the group itself and is not often priced based on its circulation. Accordingly, the term “ad-book” and “ad-book advertiser” have meanings that are limited by the non-for-profit context of their uses herein.
Likewise, the “ad-book” has very little similarity in its content to a general circulation commercial publication. Most general circulation publications have content which is their appeal, and advertising which supports the publication's articles and editorial views or subjects. By contrast, “ad-books” have primarily ads. And the balance of the content of an “ad-book” or similar print or publication for an organization is by, for, or about the organization or its mission or charitable or not-for-profit works, and its members, supporters, or honorees. In brief, an “ad-book” for a typical organization focuses inward, on itself or the organization while a commercial publication typically focuses outward toward its intended public audience or targeted segment of the public.
In this sense, this type of “ad” for an organization's “ad-book” is based on the advertiser's desire to support the organization (or be seen among his/her peers as supporting). Often ad-books and related print or publications are a part of the social or philanthropic fabric of the charitable or not-for-profit community and allow members, supporters, and donors to be recognized for their contributions by ads or messages. For example, a large and generous donor may be recognized for its contribution by a prominent full-page, gold-leaf ad, while smaller donors may be acknowledged for a smaller half page “ad” or message and still smaller “gifts” or “donations” are priced to receive and provide an even smaller “ad” or message of a ⅛th page or business card size or even a single line notation. “ad” pricing for ad-books is sometimes synonymous with “gift” or “donation” or similar terms, even though they are also direct payment for particular ads size and placement.
The “ad-book” may also be seen as a “roll of givers” that acts as a directory, establishes a pecking-order, and may even pressure others to donate. In this instance the names or recognition of members, supporters or donors to an “ad-book” may be recognized in lists, typically from the most generous to the least. Frequently such lists are broken down into groupings and/or given honorary names for each level. An example of such an “ad-book” or printing or publication would include a sequence of giving levels such as $1,000-$10,000, $500-$999, $250-$499, $100-$249 and under $100. Similarly, an example of names denoting higher levels of giving could include Diamond, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, etc. Another verbal example of levels is Chairman's Club, President's Club, Board Level or Member. There are numerous other verbal example categories of recognition and of giving levels depending widely upon the constituency of the given organization, its cause and the demographic of its community, to name just a few factors.
In this sense, ad-books give the advertiser the opportunity to be known as a benefactor and to help the community recognize its benefactors, great and small. But Ad-books are also believed to encourage giving and to offer a unique opportunity to boost giving or revenue to an organization beyond just giving, since, though thinly veiled as an ad, such ads can be treated as a business expense for advertising or with matching gifts, for members or supporters who are advertising, as opposed to other means of contribution to an organization.
The process of putting together an “ad-book” includes gathering advertisers, creating ads, collating ads, collecting money, issuing receipts, performing layout of content and graphics, finding prospective printers, bidding pre-print layout, bidding for printing services, contracting with a printer, proofreading, compiling content, pagination and printing and or publishing and distributing ad-books. Organizations that use ad-books as a fundraising vehicle often perform these tasks by organizing committees of volunteers. Many of these tasks may be performed by the organization or sent to one or more local businesses, such as graphic designers or printers, to assist with the production of the ad-books. In either case, the process is time consuming and very labor intensive for the organizations that use ad-books or similar print or publications as a fundraising vehicle. Further, since organizations generally do not collaborate or cooperate in their fundraising efforts, the economic benefit that arises from producing ad-books or other similar print or publications in large quantities for many different organizations is unavailable. Thus, a number of alternative fundraising ways are known and preferred to using ad-books such as holding an annual dinner or auction or event. But because groups or organizations appeal to their members on such special occasions and want to recognize their efforts, honorees or event, the “ad-book” techniques are often employed within such other related print or publishing (such as an outing, event or a dinner program) where “advertisers” are recognized as “sponsors”. The above techniques are well known in the world of associations, not-for-profits, charity educational, and religious organizations, to name a few.
In the field of pure charity, we know of at least one known reference that describes a method of and device for streamlining, simplifying and inducing the giving of contributions or gift commitments by contributors or prospective gift givers that involves dispersing through a crowd of prospective contributors or gift givers a plurality of keyless, electronic contributions or gifts management devices for immediate entry of consecutive data comprising the identities of the contributors or gift givers making the monetary contribution commitments or monetary gift commitments.
Another known “charity” reference describes a method of capturing monetary donations or monetary gifts made by donors or gift givers at points in time and space in which said donors or gift givers are optimally motivated to make said donations or gifts, said donations or gifts being the donation or gift preferences of respective donors or gift givers. The method comprises inputting a multiplicity of sequences of data comprised of monetary donations or monetary gifts. The monetary donations or monetary gifts are made by a plurality of said respective donors or gift givers consecutively free of input of information unrelated to said respective monetary donations or monetary gifts at a multiplicity of distinct sites where said donations and gifts are being received.
Another known “non-ad” reference describes a central office that correlates charitable contributions made at vending stations in food service establishments which issue information carriers in return for charitable contributions which are receipts for the contribution and entitle the donor to a beverage dispensed from a machine responding to the information carrier. Yet another known reference describes a multiplicity of charitable collection stations with selectors for choosing the charity to which a contribution is destined, a change maker for issuing change if desired, a display for displaying information with respect to premiums available and contributions made, and a modem or other telecommunicator for two-way communications with a central station.
However, none of these known ways improves upon or streamlines the creation, publishing, and development of ads, ad-books or related print-jobs or publishing. In addition, none of these ways creates a new tool of a type of physical “form” to fill out that simultaneously offers to or collects members or supporters billing information for an “ad” or message and the advertisements or messages, themselves, for automated delivery to pre-print production or printing and financial information or funds for direct deposit or to automatically issue accounting statements such as billing, receipts or reports. Accordingly, a new method and system and tool or device for creating ad-books is needed.
Furthermore, there is no standardized method, system, tool, automated form or device to provide such services to a plethora of groups, charities and not-for-profit organizations for fundraising ad-books or related print or publication, and more particularly, to standardized computerized/automated preparation, production, publishing and management. The lack of previously known methods to support a plethora of organizations with ad-books is probably due to several key factors which are overcome by the proposed invention. First, there is a propensity for community groups to be insular and private and to jealously guard their membership information and the privacy of their members. It is therefore only ironic that the use of ad-books provides a rare event where such organizations permit, and even encourage a public display of members and supporters. An internet based system for ad-book fundraising (as under the claimed invention) can provide customizable interconnectivity as well as privacy protection for a plethora of organizations based on the same methods and tools. Second, organizations, large and small, can rely upon volunteer efforts and volunteered efforts, in which even a plethora of organizations, can be systematized using an internet based system. And, third, organizations and groups all engage in similar fund-raising activities. Their individual identity and cause is “their heart and sole” and thus they strongly self-associate and do not share methods or tactics. But the advent of the internet has provided a unique platform for even far-flung organizations to use universally accepted methods and techniques under the claimed invention. And the flexibility of the invention, coupled with the internet delivery system and methods to personalize the delivery of forms and facades can allow widely differing groups to engage in the nearly identical fund-raising ad-book, print and publication techniques showing their own “front-end” to members and supporters while the organizations benefit from the similar methods systems, tools, automated form or device to provide such service as computerized/automated preparation, production, publishing and management by the “back-end” provided by the invention and for shared fractions of the cost spread over numerous groups, large and small.